US7519791B2 - Address conversion technique in a context switching environment - Google Patents

Address conversion technique in a context switching environment Download PDF

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Publication number
US7519791B2
US7519791B2 US10/773,847 US77384704A US7519791B2 US 7519791 B2 US7519791 B2 US 7519791B2 US 77384704 A US77384704 A US 77384704A US 7519791 B2 US7519791 B2 US 7519791B2
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United States
Prior art keywords
virtual address
address
recited
management unit
memory management
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US10/773,847
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US20050177701A1 (en
Inventor
Dennis M. O'Connor
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Intel Corp
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Intel Corp
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Priority to US10/773,847 priority Critical patent/US7519791B2/en
Assigned to INTEL CORPORATION reassignment INTEL CORPORATION ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: O'CONNOR, DENNIS M.
Priority to KR1020067015807A priority patent/KR100895715B1/ko
Priority to JP2006551169A priority patent/JP2007520014A/ja
Priority to PCT/US2005/001234 priority patent/WO2005078590A2/en
Priority to TW094101539A priority patent/TWI295015B/zh
Priority to MYPI20050444A priority patent/MY140166A/en
Publication of US20050177701A1 publication Critical patent/US20050177701A1/en
Publication of US7519791B2 publication Critical patent/US7519791B2/en
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Priority to JP2010020031A priority patent/JP2010134956A/ja
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    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F12/00—Accessing, addressing or allocating within memory systems or architectures
    • G06F12/02—Addressing or allocation; Relocation
    • G06F12/08—Addressing or allocation; Relocation in hierarchically structured memory systems, e.g. virtual memory systems
    • G06F12/10—Address translation
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F12/00—Accessing, addressing or allocating within memory systems or architectures
    • G06F12/02—Addressing or allocation; Relocation
    • G06F12/08—Addressing or allocation; Relocation in hierarchically structured memory systems, e.g. virtual memory systems
    • G06F12/10—Address translation
    • G06F12/1027—Address translation using associative or pseudo-associative address translation means, e.g. translation look-aside buffer [TLB]
    • G06F12/1036—Address translation using associative or pseudo-associative address translation means, e.g. translation look-aside buffer [TLB] for multiple virtual address spaces, e.g. segmentation
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F2212/00—Indexing scheme relating to accessing, addressing or allocation within memory systems or architectures
    • G06F2212/65—Details of virtual memory and virtual address translation
    • G06F2212/656—Address space sharing

Definitions

  • a processor in a computing system uses memory mapping to map virtual addresses to physical addresses.
  • the address space generated by, for example, the execution unit of the processor, is referred to as the virtual address space.
  • the addresses that correspond to hardware memory locations available on the system are referred to as physical address.
  • a processor may implement an additional level of address remapping for process or context switching.
  • a process identifier associated with a context may be used to remap addresses. The use of process identifiers and remapping alleviates the need to flush or invalidate a cache on process switches.
  • FIG. 1 illustrates various logic blocks of a computing system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
  • FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of a memory management unit according to an embodiment of the present invention.
  • FIG. 3 illustrates a flow diagram of virtual address to physical address conversion according to an embodiment of the present invention.
  • FIG. 4 illustrates a process switching flow according to an embodiment of the present invention.
  • a memory management unit receives a virtual address and provides a corresponding physical address.
  • the memory management unit stores generated virtual address-to-physical address translations. If a virtual address-to-physical address translation is available for a particular virtual address, the memory management unit retrieves the corresponding physical address. If a translation is not available, the memory management unit generates the corresponding physical address from the virtual address.
  • the memory management unit converts the virtual address to a modified virtual address using a process identifier and then performs a page table walk using the modified virtual address, generating the physical address.
  • references to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” “example embodiment,” “various embodiments,” etc., indicate that the embodiment(s) of the invention so described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but not every embodiment necessarily includes the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Further, repeated use of the phrase “in one embodiment” does not necessarily refer to the same embodiment, although it may.
  • processor may refer to any device or portion of a device that processes electronic data from registers and/or memory to transform that electronic data into other electronic data that may be stored in registers and/or memory.
  • a “computing platform” may comprise one or more processors.
  • FIG. 1 illustrates various logic blocks of a computing system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
  • a processor 100 includes an address generation unit (AGU) 102 and a memory management unit (MMU) 104 .
  • AGU 102 may be, for example, an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) that generates data addresses or, for example, an incrementor that generates instruction addresses.
  • the addresses generated by AGU 102 are virtual addresses.
  • MMU 104 converts the virtual addresses into physical addresses. Those physical addresses are used to access, for example, to read or write a storage 106 .
  • Storage 106 may be internal or external to processor 100 .
  • Processor 100 represents a central processing unit of any type of architecture, including an ARM, a CISC or a RISC type architecture.
  • Storage 106 represents one or more mechanisms for storing data.
  • storage 106 may include read only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), magnetic disk storage mediums, optical storage mediums, and/or flash memory devices. While one embodiment will be described in which the invention is implemented in a single processor computing system, embodiments of the invention could be implemented in a multi-processor computing system.
  • Processor 100 can be in any of a number of computing and communication systems including, but not limited to, mainframes, minicomputers, servers, workstations, personal computers, notepads, personal digital assistants, various wireless communication devices that may include one or more antenna(e) 108 and transceiver 110 and embedded systems, just to name a few.
  • FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of memory management unit 104 according to an embodiment of the present invention.
  • MMU 104 receives a virtual address and provides a corresponding physical address.
  • a determination is made whether a translation for the virtual address is contained within a store, for example, a translation look-aside buffer (TLB) 202 .
  • TLB 202 contains one or more virtual address-to-physical address translations. If a translation for the virtual address is not within TLB 202 , the translation is generated by TLB miss handling unit 204 .
  • TLB miss handling unit 204 includes conversion logic 206 and a page table walk unit 208 .
  • Conversion logic 206 converts a virtual address (VA) into a modified virtual address (MVA).
  • VA virtual address
  • MVA modified virtual address
  • Conversion logic 206 may include, for example, determination logic 210 to determine if one or more upper bits of the virtual address, for example, the seven upper bits VA[31:25], are equal to zero, and a multiplexer 212 to select the upper bits of a modified virtual address (MVA). For example, multiplexer 212 selects a process identifier, PID[6:0] to replace the upper seven bits of the virtual address if those bits of the virtual address are equal to zero. Otherwise, the upper seven bits of the virtual address are selected.
  • determination logic 210 to determine if one or more upper bits of the virtual address, for example, the seven upper bits VA[31:25], are equal to zero
  • MVA modified virtual address
  • multiplexer 212 selects a process identifier, PID[6:0] to replace the upper seven bits of the virtual address if those bits of the virtual address are equal to zero. Otherwise, the upper seven bits of the virtual address are selected.
  • the process identifier may be stored in a register on processor 100 and may be associated with a particular process. For a seven-bit PID, the virtual address may be remapped to one of 128 “slots” in a 4 Gbyte address space. This process identifier remapping may be useful for operating system management of processes that map to the same virtual address space. In those cases, virtually mapped caches would not require invalidating on a process switch until, for example, such time as the PID value rolls over or a PID value is reused.
  • An address that has yet to be modified by the PID (“PIDified”) is referred to as a virtual address (VA).
  • VA virtual address
  • Page table walk unit 208 generates a physical address using the modified virtual address.
  • Memory addressing schemes often use paging to implement virtual memory.
  • the virtual address space may be divided into fix-sized blocks called pages, each of which may be mapped onto any of the physical addresses.
  • page table walk unit 208 determines and maintains, according to a paging algorithm, the current mappings for the virtual to physical addresses using page tables.
  • the page tables are often in main memory and accessing them may be time consuming. To speed up the paging translations, some of the generated virtual address-to-physical address translations are stored in TLB 202 .
  • translated memory addresses are described herein as physical memory addresses, in alternative embodiments these translated memory addresses could be used for any number of purposes. For example, further translations could be performed on these translated memory addresses before physical addresses are achieved. In addition, while one embodiment is described in relation to translating a virtual memory address space, alternative embodiments could use the invention to assist in the translation of any type of addresses.
  • Some or all of the virtual address-to-physical address translations stored in TLB 202 may be invalidated when the process identifier is updated.
  • the process identifier is updated, for example, when a process or context is switched.
  • TLB 202 may contain translations for virtual addresses that have null upper bits and therefore are specific to a particular process, those translations must be invalidated when the process switches. Invalidating the translations in TLB 202 may be performed by software. Alternatively, hardware may detect the change and perform the invalidation automatically.
  • FIG. 3 illustrates a flow diagram of processes performed by processor 100 upon a request to MMU 104 to translate a virtual address into its corresponding physical address according to one embodiment of the present invention.
  • MMU 104 receives a virtual address, process block 302 .
  • a determination is made whether a translation for the virtual address is stored, for example, in TLB 202 , process block 304 . If so, the physical address is retrieved, process block 306 . If not, a determination is made whether the upper bits, for example, the upper seven bits, of the virtual address are null, that is, equal to zero, process block 308 . If so, the upper bits are replaced with the process identifier (PID), process block 310 .
  • PID process identifier
  • a page table walk is performed, generating the physical address, process block 312 .
  • TLB 202 may be updated with the new virtual address-to-physical address translation, process block 314 .
  • FIG. 4 illustrates a process switching flow according to an embodiment of the present invention.
  • a determination is made whether the process identifier (PID) has been updated, process block 402 . If the PID has been updated, all or part of the TLB is invalidated, process block 404 . The entire TLB may be invalidated. Alternatively, only the translations where the upper bits of the virtual address are null may be invalidated.
  • PID process identifier
  • the techniques described above may be embodied in a computer-readable medium for configuring a computing system to execute the method.
  • the computer readable media may be permanently, removably or remotely coupled to system 100 or another system.
  • the computer readable media may include, for example and without limitation, any number of the following: magnetic storage media including disk and tape storage media; optical storage media such as compact disk media (e.g., CD-ROM, CD-R, etc.) and digital video disk storage media; holographic memory; nonvolatile memory storage media including semiconductor-based memory units such as FLASH memory, EEPROM, EPROM, ROM; ferromagnetic digital memories; volatile storage media including registers, buffers or caches, main memory, RAM, etc.; and data transmission media including permanent and intermittent computer networks, point-to-point telecommunication equipment, carrier wave transmission media, the Internet, just to name a few.
  • Computing systems may be found in many forms including but not limited to mainframes, minicomputers, servers, workstations, personal computers, notepads, personal digital assistants, various wireless devices and embedded systems, just to name a few.
  • a typical computing system includes at least one processing unit, associated memory and a number of input/output (I/O) devices.
  • I/O input/output
  • a computing system processes information according to a program and produces resultant output information via I/O devices.

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  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Memory System Of A Hierarchy Structure (AREA)
US10/773,847 2004-02-06 2004-02-06 Address conversion technique in a context switching environment Expired - Fee Related US7519791B2 (en)

Priority Applications (7)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US10/773,847 US7519791B2 (en) 2004-02-06 2004-02-06 Address conversion technique in a context switching environment
KR1020067015807A KR100895715B1 (ko) 2004-02-06 2005-01-14 메모리 관리 유닛, 메모리 관리 유닛을 포함하는 시스템 및어드레스 변환 방법
JP2006551169A JP2007520014A (ja) 2004-02-06 2005-01-14 状況切換え環境中におけるアドレス変換技術
PCT/US2005/001234 WO2005078590A2 (en) 2004-02-06 2005-01-14 Address conversion technique in a context switching environment
TW094101539A TWI295015B (en) 2004-02-06 2005-01-19 Memory management unit, computing system, and method of processing a virtual address
MYPI20050444A MY140166A (en) 2004-02-06 2005-02-04 Address conversion technique in a context switching environment
JP2010020031A JP2010134956A (ja) 2004-02-06 2010-02-01 状況切換え環境中におけるアドレス変換技術

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US10/773,847 US7519791B2 (en) 2004-02-06 2004-02-06 Address conversion technique in a context switching environment

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US20050177701A1 US20050177701A1 (en) 2005-08-11
US7519791B2 true US7519791B2 (en) 2009-04-14

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US (1) US7519791B2 (ko)
JP (2) JP2007520014A (ko)
KR (1) KR100895715B1 (ko)
MY (1) MY140166A (ko)
TW (1) TWI295015B (ko)
WO (1) WO2005078590A2 (ko)

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US20070011431A1 (en) * 2005-06-27 2007-01-11 Microsoft Corporation ROM software breakpoints
US20080005399A1 (en) * 2006-05-16 2008-01-03 Ati Technologies Inc. Method and Apparatus for Determining the Status of Bus Requests and Responses
US8250254B2 (en) * 2007-07-31 2012-08-21 Intel Corporation Offloading input/output (I/O) virtualization operations to a processor
US8140825B2 (en) * 2008-08-05 2012-03-20 International Business Machines Corporation Systems and methods for selectively closing pages in a memory
KR20120083160A (ko) 2011-01-17 2012-07-25 삼성전자주식회사 메모리 관리 유닛, 이를 포함하는 장치들, 및 이의 동작 방법
KR102069273B1 (ko) * 2013-03-11 2020-01-22 삼성전자주식회사 시스템 온 칩 및 그 동작방법
KR101821633B1 (ko) 2013-03-14 2018-03-08 삼성전자주식회사 메모리 시스템

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Publication number Publication date
JP2007520014A (ja) 2007-07-19
JP2010134956A (ja) 2010-06-17
WO2005078590A3 (en) 2006-03-30
KR100895715B1 (ko) 2009-04-30
US20050177701A1 (en) 2005-08-11
MY140166A (en) 2009-11-30
KR20060120242A (ko) 2006-11-24
TWI295015B (en) 2008-03-21
TW200534094A (en) 2005-10-16
WO2005078590A2 (en) 2005-08-25

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